Kids author Victoria Kann is pretty in pink

Victoria Kann, author and illustrator of the children’s book series “Pinkaliscious,” describes some of the inspiration for her work.

“My daughters love sugar and just go crazy for cupcakes,” Kann says. “I’ve already had to take away their Halloween candy or they go nuts and eat it all.”

Kann, who’ll be at Saturday’s Savannah Children’s Book Festival, began her career as an illustrator for magazines and newspapers such as Harper’s and the New York Times, but by the time she had children, she knew she wanted to write for kids.

“All of the stories are really inspired by my kids,” Kann says. “The first one began as an April Fool’s joke.”

Kann’s daughter, a bona fide pink addict, was eating too many pink cupcakes and was warned that she would change color if she ate too many more. Kann sent an illustration of her pink-skinned daughter to friends and family and realized that it would make a great idea for a story.

“The books are lessons I want to teach my kids and I think other parents want to teach theirs,” Kann explains.

For example, when her daughter came to her with a tooth in hand and said, “Mommy, I lost my sweet tooth,” Kann saw it as not only a great idea for a story for her next book, “Silverliscious,” but as an opportunity for a moral lesson.

“I’m going to teach her that sweetness comes from the inside and you should always try to be as sweet as your sweet tooth,” Kann says.

She emphasizes in her books that the color pink is not just for girls. When Kann adapted “Pinkaliscious” into a musical, which is still being performed in New York, Toronto and Chicago, she expanded the story to focus on the character of Peter and his love of pink.

“Peter steals the show because he sings a great blues song called ‘I’ve Got the Pink Blues’ about how tough it is be a boy and like pink when he’s supposed to like blue and green,” Kann says. “I feel that all kids should be able to like whatever color they like and culture should not dictate that at all.”

Kann will be giving a presentation at the festival about her artistic process, which involves collage manipulated in Photoshop, and how she creates her stories. And Kann’s daughters, who are 13 and 11, will be on hand for a very special debut performance.

“Everyone should come and they should wear pink and meet the original ‘Pinkaliscious’ girls, who will be singing a song from the musical. They will be much more exciting than me.”